@crabby-J He was about 4-6 months old in this picture. Thank you for looking. I miss him every single day, and always will. What a bright, wonderful Spirit!
@Oxalis Thanks for asking me if I found another tortoise since Gibby died.
I know this will sound really weird to some, and others will just take it for granted and "know" that it is true.
Gibby came back to me in a new, healthy, active body. He's a 2 1/2 month old baby right now, who came back through a world-class redfoot breeder that I met on this forum.
After Gib died, I was bereft and nothing and nobody could comfort me at all- I knew Gibby was still supposed to be with me.
My dear friend, who was going through the same thing due to the loss of a cat who had just died from cancer, gave me a couple of books to read- the most significant by Dr. Gail Graham, a business woman whose beloved dog died of a rare disease, then came back to her in a new healthy body about a year later.
I knew Gibby was on his way back to me about 6 weeks after we buried him in his grazing garden... I know it sounds hippie-ish and kind of crazy by the light of day, but he's back home now.
I've done a lot of research trying to make sense of all this miraculous stuff that actually happened TO me, not because of me or anything I did or believe, in the past few months, but it's not entirely explainable by rational thought - but I do know it's actually Gibby in a million small ways, including his mannerisms, postures, preferences for food and sleeping positions and places, and the way he interacts with specific things and during activities I did with him before.
As it turns out in my research results, after reading Gail Graham's book - about half the world's population, including places like Indonesia and Malaysia where there are lots of tortoises and turtles, "know" that their animals can, and often do, come back to them during the human's lifetime.
There's an ancient Asian monastery where the monks just bury the bodies of their individual beloved pets, then wait for them to come back- and they say these same individual animal spirits have been returning in new bodies to the same monastery residence for a few thousand years now. They belong there and just keep coming back in new bodies when their old ones wear out.
I started reading the tortoise forums in several Southeast Asian nations and in Malaysia, and found all kinds of astonishing statements from people who went through what I did, were grieving very hard, and looking for their beloved tortoise to "come back to them in any form". Some believe tortoises can only come back to them as tortoises, others believe that animals can truly come back to humans they are especially bonded with as any type of animal- snake, rat, dog, cat, tortoise, etc.
I even found some Western medicine doctors and nurses - prestigious men and women of science, some Christians from Canada, and one old, crusty ex-law enforcement macho guy who "knows" his dog came back to him. He was very matter of fact about it all when he told me this in person one day.
He told me, while looking me in the eyes, that he "just knows" it is the same animal now in a puppy's body, because he raised the dog from a newborn puppy, had him 17 years, the dog died, and 8 months later there was a puppy running around in his driveway on Christmas day.
They let the puppy in as their son walked in for Christmas brunch, and that puppy went right to the dog bed in the laundry room and took a nap in the old dogs' same place. Then went under the couch and came up with a half-chewed toy the old dog lost under there a few weeks before he died. He said there is no way the puppy could've known either of those two things because both were hidden from sight- and he didn't hesitate at the bed, sniff around, or anything. He just went behind the washing machine, turned around and laid down- just like the old dog used to do.
He also told me he was hurting really bad, missing his dog day and night, and the minute he saw the puppy in his driveway, the pain just went away- he knew his beloved dog had come home... That's how it was for me when I saw Gib again in his new baby body- I know it is him, not another, different tortoise to "fill the void" that Gibby left when he died last year.
Gibby's back home and I've learned a lot about tortoise care and medicine since he left me after having a really tough beginning as a rescue, in his first body.
